The mercury didn’t quite make it to the century mark today, despite the exhortations of area meteorologists and others who wish the heat would just do its thing and go away.

“We’re flirting with it,” said Aaron Stevens, observing program leader among the meteorologists with the National Weather Service offices at Shreveport Regional Airport. “We made it to 98 degrees at 3:43 p.m.”

He estimated it could reach 99 degrees, or even 100, “tomorrow or the next day and then it’s going to start cooling down, either Tuesday or Wednesday. We can still hit 100 degrees in early September. But the chances of us doing it go down in September. Usually the time frame where we hit 100 is July or August.”

Still, compared to the summer of 2011, July and August 2014 seem pretty tame.

In 2011, there were 63 days when the thermometer reached 100 degrees or higher, and 15 of those high-heat days were back-to-back. The last time that had happened was 1956.

On average, temperatures exceed 100 degrees here seven days a year, and it reaches 95 or higher 32 days a year, and 90 or higher 87 days annually. The high temperature so far this year was July 13, when it reached 99 degrees.

Still, as Stevens noted the math would suggest that if we don’t make it to 100 today or Tuesday, the chances of doing it at all this year will recede. The average of daily temperatures for Shreveport and vicinity is a bell curve, reaching average high temperatures of 84 degrees from July 25 to Aug. 15. So as of today Shreveport has been on the downward slope of that curve for 10 days, headed to cooler climes.

Still, there’s always the off chance. The latest it has ever reached triple-digits was 100 degrees on Sept. 29, 2011 and 101 degrees on Sept. 29, 1953, according to local weather records. The earliest it has ever reached triple digits here was 101 degrees on May 24, 1875.

Shreveport’s all-time record high was 110 degrees, reached on Aug. 18, 1909.

“All local weather records were broken yesterday when the government thermometer registered 110 degrees,” The Times reported in an unbylined front-page story the following day.

Three KCS workers were prostrated by the heat, but there were no deaths of serious injuries, the paper reported, but “work horses suffered greatly from the heat while business was virtually suspended during the greater part of the afternoon.”

This was a time well before air conditioning as we know it was in common use. The record heat was set up by an almost unbearable prior evening, the paper said.

“Yesterday’s excessive heat followed an unusual sultry night when many of the residents of Shreveport found it impossible to sleep,” the story read. “Many sought the coolness of the court square, Princess Park and Gladstone.” It went on to say the courthouse lawn presented “the appearance of a battle field where many had fallen... the overheated and panting populace thronged the soda founts which were kept busy throughout the day. The ice companies reported the greatest business they have ever experienced in Shreveport.”

Nationally, one of the worst heat waves ever occurred in 1936, when record heat was recorded here in June and August.

There have only been two years in the last two decades when it never reached triple digits: 2002 and 2003. Overall, there have been 52 years when it never reached 100 degrees since modern recordkeeping began here in 1874.